The present invention relates to a slitting machine or straight-line cutting machine with an arrangement of individual cutting blades supported in individual cutting blade holders that are connected to a common lifting device. The cutting blades are movable into contact with a counter blade.
A slitting machine of the aforementioned kind is known from German Offenlegungsschrift 41 07 227. The prior art slitting machine is provided with a positioning aid for the cutting blade holders that are slidable along a transverse beam and, in a corresponding cutting position, are clampable on the transverse beam. This device already allows for a positioning of the cutting blade holders, with respect to the desired cutting width, at a correct distance to one another. This holds also true, in an embodiment of the counter blade as individual blades or as grooved blade shafts, for the adjustment of the position of the corresponding counter blades.
With the known slitting machine it is disadvantageous that, despite an exactly determined and respectively achieved positioning of the cutting blade holder with the practically achievable precision, during actual operation the individual cutting blades with their cutting edges on approaching the respective counter blade in the form of individual blades may contact the counter blade itself or the cutting blade shaft so that the cutting edges of the cutting blades are damaged thereby reducing or at least impairing the quality of the cutting operation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to ensure for a slitting machine of the aforementioned kind that at the cutting edges during advancing of the cutting blades toward the counter blade damage to the cutting edges is prevented.